Trent Cotchin retirement brings up tributes from Matthew Kreuzer, Neil BalmeAs an undersized junior Trent Cotchin had no choice in the way he was going to play his football. And when he found his true self, it helped create a golden era for the Tigers.
Josh Barnes
HeraldSun
August 11, 2023 Just over two decades ago in Albury, Trent Cotchin was a tiny kid playing above his age, and he was the hardest boy on the field.
Long before he would become a Richmond legend – a classy midfielder who became the tough edge of a premiership dynasty – Cotchin met his Victorian teammate Matthew Kreuzer when their families stayed at the same holiday park during an under-12 schoolboys carnival.
A handful of years later, Kreuzer was the ruck prize claimed by Carlton with the No.1 pick in the 2007 draft and his good mate Cotchin went to Richmond with the very next choice.
“The thing with Trent was he always played that age group above (because he was born in April), so he was always the youngest out there and he was small,” Kreuzer recalled.
“He was one of those kids growing up, he was very competitive. No matter what it was, just mucking around wrestling, maybe it was because he was smaller, he was so competitive.
“When he grew up a bit and got stronger, you could see it in the way he played his footy and attacked it, he didn’t like losing and he would certainly crack in.”
The top three picks in the 2007 draft: Trent Cotchin, Matthew Kreuzer and Chris Masten.Cotchin, who announced on Thursday he would retire at the end of this season as the only Richmond player to captain three premierships, was a smooth accumulator until he saw the light.
From 2017 onwards, as the Tigers found themselves, he returned to that tough, ball hunter that impressed Kreuzer back in Albury.
“I was always tiny as a junior, I didn’t grow until I was 13 or 14 (years old) so there was only one option – to be in and under,” Cotchin said.
“I was never going to mark the footy and I still can’t, so, yeah, I think that is kind of where it comes from.”
A TIGER CHAMPION
TRENT COTCHIN FACT FILE
* Games: 305, goals: 141
* Drafted: No.2, 2007 AFL Draft
* Premiership captain: 2017, 2019, 2020
* Brownlow Medal: 2012
* All-Australian: 2012
* Jack Dyer Medal (Richmond best-and-fairest): 2011, 2012, 2014
* Richmond captain: 2013-2021 (188 games, club record)
* Equal most games in No.9 jumper in VFL/AFL history (tied with Shane Crawford)
* Most tackles, clearances, contested possessions and handballs in Richmond history
At his retirement press conference, young son Parker dropped a footy on the floor and for a moment Cotchin glanced at it, muscle memory demanding he dive on the loose ball.
Judging by the skills of his three kids kicking the ball on Punt Road Oval after the media dispersed, the apple hasn’t fallen far.
“If you saw these three bananas (my kids) running around you would see they are a bit kamikaze,” Cotchin said.
“I think it is just the way I am programmed and we are programmed.”
Legendary Richmond figure Neil Balme returned to Punt Road in October 2016, just as Cotchin and the Tigers were digging themselves out of a famous hole.
The long-time administrator saw Cotchin wear that hard edge on the weekends as he became softer off the field, learning to be himself on both sides of the white line.
“He rediscovered himself and said, ‘This is who I really am’,” Balme said.
“Rather than trying to be some tough (guy) he realised, ‘This is who I am and this is what I am going to do’, and he was a better player for it and he was a better teammate because he was who he was.
“Sometimes that is the way it is because it is belief in what you do and commitment to what you do and being happier in what you do. So, you are a bit tougher on the field because that is what he believed in. The other way, you are sort of fighting against yourself.”
Kreuzer agreed that hardman persona had “always been in him” even as he labelled Cotchin as “a ripper bloke” who would take time out of every day to check in on his mates.
As the ruckman battled injuries and a lack of success at Carlton, he watched on proudly as his mate led Richmond back into powerhouse status, blasting away the past in 2017.
“It was good to see because obviously they had been through some tough times and they copped a fair bit of flak and he obviously copped a bit of flak as well, so for him to come out and do what he did, he really shut them up in a way,” Kreuzer said.
Cotchin found it hard to split the 2017 and 2020 triumphs as his favourite.
His top moment on field will undoubtedly be a late goal in the 2017 qualifying final, spinning through a pack and finishing on his left to lock in Richmond’s first win in a final in 16 years.
Even Balme sighed wistfully when the moment was raised on Thursday.
Trent Cotchin leaves a huge legacy at Tigerland. Picture: Michael Klein.Cotchin said he wasn’t completely sure whether he would stay in football after this season ends and has little interest in coaching.
A grumbly calf ruled him out of playing this weekend and he will “suck it and see” to play one last time at the MCG against North Melbourne in round 23.
Balme, who has seen just about everything at Richmond since his debut as a player in 1970, said the playing group was “really moved” by Cotchin’s speech on Thursday morning, when he told his teammates he was retiring.
The Tigers legend put Cotchin right up alongside the greats of a bygone eras at Punt Road.
“I find it nearly impossible to make those judgments, but he is certainly up there with the really important ones, he is certainly up there with the Francis Bourkes and the Royce Harts and the Kevin Bartlett and the Kevin Sheedys, there is no doubt about that,” Balme said.
And as for filling the hole left by Cotchin?
“It is not easy to do as a club, but we will, because we did replace Francis Bourke ultimately,” Balme said.
https://www.codesports.com.au/afl/afl-2023-trent-cotchin-retirement-brings-up-tributes-from-matthew-kreuzer-neil-balme/news-story/da887b217ca61675ad0ecb7f76615e64
